Young people who have experienced first episode psychosis are five times more likely than the rest of the population to experience gambling problems. This is the finding of research led by Marie-France Demers, a researcher in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université Laval.
Between 2019 and 2023, the research team monitored the cases of more than 500 young people aged 18 to 35 who had experienced a first episode of psychosis (FEP). The clinicians treating them systematically asked them questions about their relationship with gambling. The study found that 17 of these 519 young people had developed a gambling problem, although it was not necessarily at the pathological stage. This is five times higher than the rate of problem gambling in the general population.
The study identified certain risk factors, in particular that of having already gambled before the FEP. The use of certain antipsychotics that stimulate the reward circuit in the brain could also play a part in this dynamic. These drugs are very useful in the treatment of psychosis because of their many desirable effects.
The use of this problem gambling screening by two large early intervention clinics, which treat young people at the onset of psychosis, is one of the important outcomes of this research. In order to generalize the use of this screening, it could be integrated into the frame of reference used to develop FEP programs.
Marie-France Demers is already planning to continue her work by conducting a qualitative study based on interviews with young people, in order to understand the reasons that lead them to gamble and the contexts in which they engage in gambling.
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